From Last to First, Sebastien Bourdais Dominates at St. Petersburg
By Asher Fair
The first race of the 2017 Verizon IndyCar Series showed how unpredictable race results can be. What all contributed to the unexpected outcome?
Honda won just two of the 16 IndyCar races last season compared to Chevrolet’s 14 victories. However, Honda came into this season powering the cars of two of the biggest three teams in the sport, Chip Ganassi Racing and Andretti Autosport.
But it was Dale Coyne Racing that delivered Honda its first win at St. Petersburg since the whole field was Honda-powered in 2011. Honda also got its first win on ANY road or street course since Graham Rahal won at Mid-Ohio in 2015.
Dale Coyne Racing’s Sebastien Bourdais crashed his Honda-powered car in qualifying yesterday and had to start dead last in today’s Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, his hometown race, because of it.
That did not stop him from claiming his 36th career IndyCar victory. While strategy played a role in his win, the 10.3508-second margin he built over 2nd place Simon Pagenaud upon crossing the finish line showed just how dominant and fast he truly was.
It was the first time since Scott Dixon pulled it off in 2014 at Mid-Ohio that the driver who started in last place won an IndyCar race.
Other Notable Statistics
The race featured a total of eight lead changes among five different drivers and two caution periods for a total of eight laps. Bourdais led the most laps, leading 69 of the race’s 110. James Hinchcliffe, Simon Pagenaud, Will Power, and Takuma Sato also led laps.
The first caution flag flew on lap 1 when there was contact between a few cars in turn 3. Graham Rahal and Charlie Kimball took the brunt of that damage and were laps down for the remainder of the race. JR Hildebrand and Carlos Munoz were also involved as was Helio Castroneves. The restart came on lap 5.
The second caution flag flew on lap 26 when Mikhail Aleshin and Tony Kanaan came together, littering the track with debris. The restart came on lap 31.
Individual Ups and Downs
Polesitter Will Power did not finish the race after having a race to forget. James Hinchcliffe passed Power and pulled away from him on the first restart of the race on lap 5. Power then came to the pits early because of a tire issue and then ran over an air hose and was penalized.
Later in the race, Power needed to save fuel to make it to the end. He was black flagged for going too slowly in trying to do so. He ended up finishing in 19th place. Only Spencer Pigot (20th) and Carlos Munoz (21st) joined Power as drivers that did not finish the race.
On a positive note, Power did drive in the season opener this season as opposed to last season, when he had to be sidelined by Team Penske because of the concussion-like symptoms he showed after a hard crash in practice.
Rookie Ed Jones, Bourdais’ teammate, finished in 10th place in his first career IndyCar race after starting in 18th place.
Andretti Autosport’s Ryan Hunter-Reay turned what could have been a disaster into a solid 4th place finish. First off, he had a major crash in morning warm-up following a minor crash in qualifying yesterday.
Then, he did not even take the green flag at the start of the race since something wrong in the car forced him into the pit. However, he was bailed out by the lap 1 caution that allowed him to stay on the lead lap and not get too far behind the leaders.
See full race results from the season opener at IndyCar.com.
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Next Race
The series takes a four-week break before it returns on Sunday, April 9th, 2017. Long Beach, California, hosts the 43rd Grand Prix of Long Beach that day. Simon Pagenaud won the event last season and will look to defend that victory this season.